This story did not start from there and is far from ending here. The merciful jackals are located towards the middle of my memoir. Do you think it deserves telling the whole story? Do you think I am able to bring my ideas into words? Do you think I shall continue? Please tell me your views. We were told that we should not stay long in the flat. I had never been in any flats before, or at least not in a flat as I was expecting it. However, my mind pictured the flat; it gave me a perfect three dimensional picture. It was in a big tower building on the sea side. A big room for us to rest sleep and play with the children. Clean toilet and bathroom, a nice small kitchen full of delicious foods. I looked through the window I saw the sand, the lovers walking up and down holding each other’s hands by their little fingers, and the ebb and flow of the sea. The swans were jumping into the water and the ducks walked sluggishly on the beach. What will happen if the tide comes up and up? No, it never happened so why for us. Anyway we are not in the ground floor, it will never reach us.
By now the car reached a small town. It was not a real town. It was not as beautiful and peaceful as a village, but at the same time it was not as urban as a town should be. The car gathered speed on a dusty empty street. Suddenly it made a harsh break and two men from the side of the road rushed into our car. In the beginning I wondered how they could find room in this small car which was already loaded with us. When they popped in the car, I understood that there were plenty of room, even for more. The driver did not care about theses small issues. It was not his first mission, he got used to it.
The car left the market and went through some narrow alleys. It soon left the town, accelerated even further and I had a last, may be not, look at the so called town from behind. I did not see any sea or high buildings. No tower blocks no any sign of flats. It went through different bends and rumps until it stopped at a green patch. Two young men were waiting for us there. They were dark skinned dusty and looked shabby. They were both short built but looked strong and even more savage-like than urban. The car stopped and they came down and asked us to leave the car. Where? You do not have to ask, just do what you are told to do; this is the rule of the way. One of the men took our big bag from the car boot and smiled at it a little bit. He looked like somebody always on way, clever and smart and strong built and slim. He had dark skin, long face and a moustache and a thin beard. He said this is too heavy for the road, which road! I asked one of the young men to hold one side and I hold the other. He laughed at my opinion and ironically glanced at the other men who shake their heads at the stupidity of my opinion. He suggested that I leave the bag with the driver, but I refused because I said that it contains all the clothes and necessities for our baby and children. In reality the bag contained many things, clothes for the baby, extra clothes for the other children, an emergency blanket, a set of UNO UNO play cards which the children loved most and many other things.
Anyway, he helped me to take the bag on my back. I was wondering how far it should take to the flats, where we should have our dinner and most important of all the children may need to empty their bladders. The leader of the group whispered with the two young men and gave them some small packages and things. What they were doing, I did not know but I was expecting the bad things to happen. I heard that that route was a drugs route. ‘Drugs go to Europe through that route’, a friend told me before leaving home, ‘be careful, if they capture you they do not make any difference between you and the drug dealers.’ Who is the drug dealer and who is innocent in a group of suspected people? The most possibility is for the innocent to become the prime suspect, as he/she is not experienced in lies as the real dealers. At that time, as I was too busy with the bag, the baby and my wife, I saw my two children with the young men. A sound told my heart that the agents use children to hide their drugs, I became numb. I tried to collect my entire human and man power in a point, to make myself stronger, I could not. ‘What I did?’ I asked myself, what may happen to my two sons?
The main agent broke my chain of thought when he gently came back towards me. ‘This is the border’, he whispered to my ears, ‘if they capture you here you will be in big trouble’. The word border was similar to a bomb in my ears. Should we cross the border so easily! How long should we walk? The first agent said you should not walk more than five minutes. He swore by the God almighty that we do not have to walk, only cars, horse and aeroplane, otherwise we had to go back without paying a filis (equal to a penny). This promise was very plausible at home; you do not have to pay anything until you reach your destination safely. If you do not like anything you come back home without saying a word. I looked at the children, the baby and my wife. Returning home was worse than going forward. I suddenly remembered a piece of prose I had studied in my school days. When they crossed Gibraltar, Tariq, the leader, told his soldiers: “the enemy is in front of you and the sea is behind you, you do not have any choice except to fight like a beast until death”.
I thought about many things but it was impossible to predict everything. Some people may say ‘I already knew from the beginning’, that is simply a lie. I understood there was no time to think as there was no time to discuss or oppose. So I listened to him carefully. ‘From here until you reach the car you have to go fast and quiet’, he said this in an authoritative and confident tone. Going fast was impossible with a woman a baby a heavy bag and another child. Going quiet was even worse with a 40 day old baby. I was not very worried about my eldest son; he could walk properly with the other single man who accompanied us. I asked the other single man to be kind enough to take care of my elder son. He nodded with a friendly confidence. ‘You can walk, I trust you’ I told my son. ‘You may take this small bag with you also; it just contains some baby clothes’ I told him. He said OK, OK. In reality the bag was more important than baby clothes.
I was worried about my other son, the baby and my wife. The baby was only forty days old. My wife embraces it and from our first steps when she wanted to cross a small stream of water she slipped and I hold her arm. A heavy bag on my back, her hand in one of my hands and my other son in the other; it looked like I had the weight of the whole world on my heart. I was somehow disappointed but human beings always create some kind of hope for themselves. It will be only some meters walk, soon we reach the car.
We crossed all the small water streams; the grass was slippery and wet. Walking on mud and grass, grass and mud, it was terrible especially for a woman who never been in a place like this. My wife fell several times, but she did not accept to hand the baby to me. Mothers believe that nobody could handle their babies as safe as they do. As we were following them we heard some funny sounds. Hoo hoo, what is that sound? The jackals’. I suddenly returned to my childhood. I had heard so many stories about jackals. Jackals live beside rivers. At night they cry or wail, the stories were just to make fun of them. They were not as dangerous as wolves, bear or pigs; they were only dangerous to chicken, not human beings. By the time I was a small boy the conflict between man from one side and nature with its harsh weather, floods and draughts from the other, was just about to end. People mainly told stories about those dangerous bears, destroyer pigs and savage wolves as something from the past. ‘Uncle Bear’ they said, was climbing a walnut tree at night. The watchman was on the same tree but he kept himself as quiet as a dead. When uncle bear picked a walnut and broke it in his hand he showed it to the moon light to see whether it had a good core or not, the watchman thought he offered him to eat so he suddenly and harshly said: ‘I don’t eat’ which made uncle bear to be so surprised at the sound that he lost his balance and fell down from the tall tree and died.
Anyway, in any struggle jackals had not a strong position to be counted. When I became a university student and studied linguistics, the jackals returned to my interest. Jackal is the name which remained the same and did not change in many Indo-European languages. The same pronunciation, or very similar, is heard in Kurdish, Persian, German, English and could be many other languages. Although Turkish and Azeri are not Indo-European languages but they neighbour Kurds and Persians, the name is the same.
When we reached a point and the baby started to cry we heard some scary sounds, sounds of humans, which kind of humans were expected in that place except border soldiers. We noticed that the two agents took the hands of my elder son and the other man and run. I saw them sneaking behind the trees and disappeared, but how we could run. My wife could not even walk properly. What we could do was to sit in our place, make our heads low and try to make the baby as comfortable as possible, of course with breast milk. As we did so we heard the sound of the soldiers, the sound of their feet and even their breath. We said we could not do anything, if they capture us it is better sooner than later. The solders left without finding us, may be without looking properly for us or without a wish to capture us. The other possibility, which is stronger than the other two is that we already crossed their border and were in the other side; they could not cross the border as we did, and they did not have an interest in people who crossed their border and left them anyway. Whatever the reason, they left us but the agents left as well taking my elder son with them.
We were lost but we did not realize that we were lost. Or we did not want to admit that we were lost. Where we have to go and which direction we have to take. I suggested waiting but how long, I was not sure. My wife said that they mentioned a car so we have to go until we reach the car. I did not fully agree with her, but humans must deceive themselves sometimes. We saw a light from far, that is the car, they flash us with full lights, let us go as fast as we can. At a situation like that mind cannot fully coordinate with body, it cannot even coordinate between its parts and departments. You create an image or fantasy, you make yourself to believe it, and you simply deceive yourself.
My wife was slipping continuously on the grass. The grass was wet and it was high. It was not simply a kind of grass you find in gardens or parks. It was mainly straw and other wild kinds of grass. We find a road. It was an abandoned country or more realistically wild road. There were signs of car tyres going deep in the mud; making two deep parallel lines with a high bump in between. We went through the road and we virtually reached the cars head lights. When we get closer there were no sign of car or light or human presence. Beside the road we saw abandoned high military towers with place for one armed man. From the other side, the side on our left or the side we left behind were lower guard towers. We were walking between the two lines of guard towers.
We went and went. Sometimes we stopped and looked back, we listened for any sound. I suggested going back to our first place. The place we were lost. My wife refused and told me to keep going in a voice which looked like coming from somebody who has a foot in the grave. My wife got desperate with her trainers which she got as a gift from her sister in-law from abroad. She took them off and threw them away and started to walk bare feet on the grass. I begged her to keep them but she did not listen. She was not ready to discuss anything, ‘go and don’t say anything’ that was her message. I hold the trainers for a while with me and asked her again to wear them. When she refused again I asked her that I should throw them away, I could not hold them anymore.
The bag was too heavy and as we started to worry more about our elder son and ourselves, we wanted just to survive. A bag on your back, a child lies on your shoulder like a dead body; it was not bearable. I threw the bag away and continue to walk to no-where. The night was dark but we could see our way. Human beings are special and rare species, they could survive in very hard situations. I heard many people in my village saying ‘our hearts are in a very strong and hard place; otherwise they popped away one time after so much stress and hard life.’ I was very hot with walking, stress, and heavy load, I sweated a lot and I took off my coat. I threw it away as well. We saw the light flashing again it was a red light; we thought we were closer now to the light. Once I thought the light may come from a big ship at the sea side. I never in my life being there before, but I saw some maps of the area and knew that there was a sea, a small sea. I paused and looked back but there were no sign of any human being in that desert. I heard the sound of running water. That could be the main pipe lines of a water system of a big city. If we reach that city I shall ask somebody to use a phone, I shall tell the agents about our where about. They may not accept and they may tell the police. No, they may consider our situation and be kind with us. I wondered and wondered without a clear thought.
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Written by fellpony (1507 comments posted) 23rd April 2008 | | This looks formidably dense - would you care to re-format it into paragraphs? I find it extremely hard to read, let alone comment on. And is it non fiction, or should it be in Extended or Short stories? | thank you
Written by Papule (17 comments posted) 23rd April 2008 | | Thanks for your note. I have just copied and pasted from Word! Now could be better readable. |
Written by fellpony (1507 comments posted) 23rd April 2008 | I can see that this was a real situation, and therefore this is part of a much longer piece. I assume the people are real people, not characters (you've put this in Non Fiction after all). While it isn't exceptionally well written, the strangeness of the situation has its fascination - I did read it all and wondered how you got on after the written description ended. Your style is unusual and disregards some conventions of presentation, but as the tale unfolded I got used to that. The recall of details is strange and accumulates into a convincing account of the journey. I would like to know WHY you and your family were trying to cross the border secretly; what country were you leaving, and where were you going? What age are you and your wife? what are your names? what does she say, feel, do, as you and the children are travelling? There's a lot in it, but also a lot missing from a reader's point of view.
Now: What do you plan to do with this? If you only want to record what happened, for your own and your family's use, it will serve as it is. If however you want to find a publisher to put it before the public, your writing will need some polishing. | Wonderful comment
Written by Papule (17 comments posted) 23rd April 2008 | Thank you very much for your review Fellpony.
English is not my first language and not even the language spoken at my home. That is the root of my poor style and presentation. Although I am a friend of English literature since the mid 1980s, however, I can’t be as fluent as a native speaker or writer. It is apparent that whatever I try still I need a native English writer or writers to review and edit my work. I would like to write my memoir in English and publish it one day. I may better doing in written academic writing than in pure literature. I shall try my creative writing here and see if I can improve it.
I have written this short piece as a trial of my ability to write my memoirs. I am not yet sure if I could write down all my memoirs and be marketable for publishing. I have a lot to say but in this stage I preferred to keep every name, place and character anonymous and I shall bring everything into light once I get enough confidence to write my memoirs not only of that journey but from my childhood experience, adolescence and my time of torture as a political prisoner.
I appreciate your review and I shall be happy to hear more in order to polish my writing, as you said: [your writing will need some polishing]
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